Md. urban winery finally feels like it can ‘push the envelope’ after 2 years in survival mode
March 27, 2022
Paul Vigna
PennLive.com
The concept for The Wine Collective, an urban winery located in a northern neighborhood of Baltimore, took a couple of years from inception to having the operation ready to open.
Unfortunately, that opening aligned with the onset of the pandemic, said Enrique Pallares, one of the managing partners of the unique business along with well-known winemaker John Levenberg.
“Two years, so crazy. it’s like a time warp,” Pallares said in a recent phone conversation. ‘We were set to open on March 21st [2020] and all of Maryland closed on March 17th. I literally called my brother who’s my partner in all this and I was like, ‘cancel the cheese orders.’”
Eventually, the tasting room in the middle of a wine production area inside a warehouse at 1700 W. 41st St. in the city’s Hampden neighborhood opened in July of that year. Well, sort of. “It’s a very weird thing where you are doing a grand opening but it’s really not grand and you’re asking people not to come.” They were limited to 25 percent capacity, he said. “Just this month it has felt like we’re really open for the first time.”
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